ISRO FAILURE TO DENT ITS COMMERCIAL ASPIRATIONS

AFTER a satellite launch failed last May, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), S Somanath, had said, “Failure is never a defeat, but rather a formidable tutor.”

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This Monday morning, when another launch mission recorded the space agency’s second consecutive failure in the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) series on its 64th flight, those words invite uncomfortable scrutiny. After lifting off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, the PSLV-C62 rocket, carrying 16 satellites, encountered disturbances near the end of the third propulsion stage, causing a deviation from the planned trajectory and preventing it from reaching the intended altitude of 512 km. All 16 satellites were lost—including Isro’s primary Earth observation satellite, EOS-N1, and 15 others belonging to foreign and domestic customers, largely private startups.